AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM: ‘THE TREASURE OF ULYSSES DAVIS,’ through Sept. 6. Ulysses Davis (1914-1990) was a Savannah, Ga., barber who whittled and carved wooden sculptures in his shop when business was slow. Organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, this show is by far the largest presentation of Mr. Davis’s sculpture to be seen outside Savannah and the first to reveal the full scope of his imagination. His best-known works, carvings of historical figures, take a backseat to hybrid beasts and hydra-headed figures. It makes clear that he wasn’t just a patriotic folk artist, or an African-American artist affirming his heritage, or an inward-looking, visionary artist. He was all of these, which is to say that no single cliché of “outsider” art quite fits him. 45 West 53rd Street, (212) 265-1040, folkartmuseum.org (Karen Rosenberg).
NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY: ‘HARLEM, 1970-2009: PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAMILO JOSÉ VERGARA,’ through July 12. From the time he arrived in the United States from Chile as a college student in 1965, the photographer Camilo José Vergara has been haunting, and haunted by, American cities. Some — Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York — he has revisited and rephotographed repeatedly in the past 40 years to record changes over time. The people and places of Harlem are the subject of this small show about alteration and continuation. A similar exhibition, “Storefront Churches: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara,” runs through Nov. 29 at the National Building Museum in Washington. 170 Central Park West, at 77th Street, (212) 873-3400, nyhistory.org (Holland Cotter).
